January - December 2024
It's Jan 6th and there's our first demo of the year. The
location will come back to me at some stage, but its roughly
half way between Croydon and West Wickham - maybe it was
Shirley. In the mean time here are the pictures.
So yes, cold, but not too bad and there might be a video or
two, too, here, here
and here. The spirit is
there to get this stopped at the mayoral election on 4th May by
a forever hopeful few, well, quite a few actually considering
the Christmas decorations have only just come down. This is
followed a week later by camera-blocking protest at Hook
roundabout in Chessington, as shown below. The numbers look
lower but there were groups of people stationed along the road
as far south as Malden Rushett blocking cameras.
We are now at Trafalgar Square on 27th Jan 2024 for a bigger
event with some videos here, here,
here,
here
and here.
Now we're up to the 10th Feb 24 and we're in Orpington for a
demo on that roundabout again with quite a few of the local
farmers joining in with their tractors. Some videos are here,
here,
here,
here,
here
and here and pictures of
us spreading the word to the electorate are below. Time would
tell the outcome of all this but I can't give the game away yet,
so in the mean time, we'll keep thinking about the local,
regional and national electorate.
Likewise, three hours of the next day were dedicated to a bit of
camera blocking in North Cheam. Someone even stopped to give us
a bar of chocolate. Nice one.
The 17th Feb 24 was spent in Biggin Hill for a slightly witchy,
but nonetheless amusing, ULEZ protest, pictures of which are
below and a video can be found here.
Now it's the 24th Feb 2024 and we're at Dagenham for another
bash at reminding the electorate that we're still around. A
video of the event can be found here. Nice one
Dagenham.
A few days later on 29th Feb 2024 we're at City Hall and we're
not allowed inside because the mayor considers it too dangerous
as tensions are running so high at the moment (not). Anyway, so
we're outside. My sole contribution to this event (organised by
a fellow Volvo owner, Mr Max) was to provide a two-stroke
generator to power the laptops and the projector. The security
staff in City Hall took a great interest in my little red
generator, saying that we did not have permission to use it and
if we didn't stop it, they would have to call the police. Indeed
they arrived in slightly greater force than might have been
necessary, but you can't be taking too many precautions these
days.
A few videos to allow you to sample the City Hall atmosphere
can be found here, here
and here. Anyway, by some
miracle, the generator ran flawlessly for the full duration of
the mayor's question time and its emissions were passable, too.
Right, now we move onto the 3rd March 2024 and there's a demo
near Croydon which is a good one, as the video here
shows, I hope.
There's another on 9th March 2024 which is held in Eltham, I
think, and that has quite a good attendance, too, as I hope the
videos here and here
show.
I am hoping the effects of all this on the electorate will be
absolutely wizard. The 16th of March 2024 brings us to Enfield
for another event, videos of which are here,
here,
here,
here
and here. The suited gent
in the last video is a tory councillor from Bromley who
certainly has put in the hours on these demos. I raise my hat to
him.
On the very next day there is a slightly bigger event at
Rosehill roundabout in Morden. There were one or two naughty
people there, but on the whole it was a great day, with only one
police car receiving a painted windscreen and, as is becoming
usual for these more radical events, someone turned off the
traffic lights, ouch. A couple of videos are here
and here.
We're springing into a new season soon. Indeed the 24th March
2024 takes us to Feltham for another event with one or two iffy
people in attendance (such a wet blanket I am) so, yep, off go
the traffic lights (guess someone has a workman's key to those
metal boxes you see) and one of the famous cameras took a tumble
onto the tarmac below. All very embarrassing but we must keep on
with this. A few weeks later I was to sense there is a bit of
rift growing in the groups between those who want to avoid
criminal damage (yes, I am one of those, officer) and those who
evidently, errrr, don't! Anyway, there is a video here
which ended with me being almost run over by a double decker
bus. Please will all this just stop one day ;-0 ;-0
And now it's the 30th of March 2024 and we're in Chislehurst at
the war memorial for a bright, early spring bash. I got to meet
Batman (previously dressed as a nun) and also Susan Hall, the
Conservative mayoral candidate who will get my vote, not half.
Some videos are here, here,
here,
here
and here.
We're now up to the 6th April 2024 and there's another protest
in Tooting (video: here) but our
miserable old misery-guts of a mayor, or one of his neighbours,
decided it was all too on-my-front-door so, after an
hour or so of peaceful protest, dear reader, the old bill
started arriving in some considerable force. Armed with a
Section 42 warrant or something, they gave us 10 minutes to
disappear. Not being made of very tough stuff I just went to the
pub right there but some of the stronger-willed folk objected to
the extent that 5 of them (and a dog) got arrested, taken to
Charing Cross nick and locked up for 10 hours while we travelled
up to The Smoke and waited in the growing dark outside.
Lordy, all this just to be able to drive a triplet of old
Volvo's and a Hyundai. There was a reporter from New Tang
Dynasty TV who was with us all day and I believe his
report can be found on the Tube of You's. I am convinced now
that that marble folly saying Furzedown is intended to double as
gun placement, come the revolution ;-0 ;-0
Would this dampen our spirits? Apparently not. Here we are a few days later on 9th April 2024 in Wallington again, with a couple of videos here and here.
More fun follows in Crayford with its distinctive red tower on April 13th 2024 which can be seen in the pictures below and in the videos here, here and here.
On the 20th of April we are somewhere fairly quiet but we're definitely there, although I can't remember the name - maybe it was Bexley. A couple of videos are here and here.
The next day (21/4/24), there is another event in the more
radical north-western reaches of London, namely Hillingdon,
which saw a bit more hanky-panky so I wandered off when things
got a bit extreme towards the end. I had been warned the day
before that it might be a bit dicey there but I thought I would
go along all the same. However, before my departure, I did get a
couple of videos here and here.
And that really was probably the last of the local
anti-ULEZ demonstrations ever held.
It's the 27th April 2024 and there's one final bash in
Trafalgar Square before the mayoral election on May 2nd. My
videos are here, here,
here
and here.
And now it's May the 2nd 2024 and it's polling day for the
Greater London Assembly. The ingenuity of people never ceases to
amaze me and this time our centre piece is a dedicated portaloo,
prominently placed on a man-made hump in the ground at City
Hall, extolling the virtues of our beloved mayor who has brought
all of this upon us. Long may he reign. Some videos are here,
here,
here
and here. At least one of
these goes to show just how slowly I think under pressure - I
really can hardly get the words out of my head on a sensible
timescale. Despite tipping off various news agencies, I heard
that the only camera crew which came to see us was from Qatar
TV. Damn, we lost the vote anyway, so it's looking like at least
another 4 years of ever growing menace to the old car owner in
London. Evidently this stuff wins elections so we will just have
to reap what the electorate sows.
Well, so there we are and so be it. The next few weeks are
spent on various things, some that are a bit of a chore, like
trying to be sociable, energetic and enthusiastic to all and
sundry, and others that are actually good fun, like admiring
cornflowers (?) and finishing my repair of the Hyundai's rear
wheel arch! Shame the car can't go anywhere though ;-0 ;-0
Another problem develops with the Hyundai in that the passenger
side mirror is making a dreadful graunching sound as it winds in
or out at the press of the button. Eventually it stops moving at
all. This necessitates a bit of removal and dismantling which
revealed two little plastic cogs which had each lost one tooth.
The cheapest second hand mirror which I could procure for that
model was indeed procured and taken apart as a potential donor
for the two cogs, however, the design was found to be completely
different and this meant going back to square one.
A hunt around the internet came up with exactly the right cogs
which could be purchased second hand from China via the Alibaba
/ Ali-Express website for a few pounds and they duly arrived
within a few days. I assume the 'new' ones are second hand
because they (below right) look a bit greasy and faded in their
old age, but they might well be brand new.
Putting the cogs back in their little plastic gear box, filling
it with plumbers grease and reassembling everything, with the
cat's assistance, gave a passenger side wing mirror which was
back to functioning perfectly well again. All's well that ends
well.
Now into early July 2024 and it's time for a quick change of
political allegiance - from Tory to Reform, who are promising to
scrap ULEZ and the congestion charge. The tide is turning and
this is our last chance. The unstoppable ULEZ activists are at
it again in terms of their sheer ingenuity in raising the
profile of our cause (I think anyway), as the Daily Telegraph
reported in its noble pages the day before polling day.
Oddly, I was actually on a guided tour of Lambeth when a phone
call arrived saying that the boat needed someone to go and look
at it as it was being moved - the GPS tracker on board had
alerted the owner by text, who reported it being stolen and got
a crime number! I then went to the said area by Tube and
eventually found the poor old thing a bit worse for wear in the
Kentish Town vehicle pound, before back-up arrived soon after.
Fascist scum we might be and I can also relate to the quality
of the local paintwork - aerosol on ketchup undercoat is pure
quality. At the time of writing (Sept 2024) I think it is still
in the pound. Anyone know a friendly crane-driver who doesn't
mind being sacked (and nicked)? My prediction that the owners
will have to buy it back at auction is still on the table.
Apparently the trailer needed new tyres at roughly twice the
price of the boat itself (£50). Anyway we lost again the
election. No comment.
The day after polling day, a bit of ULEZ related effort
materialises in the form of attending Charing Cross police
station in support of the 5 arrested protestors who, it turns
out, are charged and bailed to appear in Westminster Magistrates
Court on 9th Aug 2024.
So always on the positive side, let's get the deep blue 340
ready for a show in September just down the road at Brooklands.
The first thing was to find, to my surprise, that the late mk3
rear doors have the drillings required to fit the earlier
brackets for the door pull, as shown below. This is something to
be very happy about and I am also to very grateful to the donor
of the brackets and pulls themselves.
That was wonderful as it allowed the pulls, which I had
previously repainted with acrylic, along with the rest of the
door card and paraphernalia, to be fitted. These are the darker
door cards from the same mk2 donor (a 360 I think) which was
gracefully departed from this life in Portsmouth a couple of
years ago and provided the seats.
So rear seats and door cards all fitted, so let's move on to
the front and this all looks pretty promising.
Fitting the earlier style door cards to the mk3 doors did involve moving a little trim plug that the door card screws into right beneath the door card pocket.
A bit of patching up with insulating tape (not shown) was done to block the new holes and, since one of the front door cards had been slightly badly treated, a fairly generous dose of black silicone sealant was used to make a slightly better seal at the trailing edge and a bit of creative woodwork was done to clamp the door card down and try to reshape its papier mâché a bit at the top. This is all not ideal stuff but, to my eyes at least, the door trims look pretty good, from a distance anyway, in spite of their very minor shortcomings ;-0
One final touch to get everything looking in sync colour-wise, Deep Blue's original boot board was put into storage and replaced with a slightly darker one (from the loft) which needed very minor repairs prior to fitting. Here we are now on 9th Aug 2024 at Westminster Magistrates court to cheer on the Tooting Five, one of whom had his charges dropped and the other 4 are told that they have to come back at the end of November to hear from whichever party felt that the protest was intimidatory in some way. This isn't going to happen is it.
One of the tests I did to Deep Blue in readiness for the MOT was to check the wing mirror motors and the passenger side one was found to be inoperative. Thinking this could be due to the switch in the transmission tunnel, I removed said item and found it to be heavily corroded inside. Cleaning everything up and repacking it with plumbers grease sorted it out.
The car does eventually get an MOT (4/9/24) after some work to the handbrake and a bit of welding on the driver's side sill at the back. It's now 8th Sept 2024 and two 300 series cars make it to the show which was a great day out at Brooklands Motor Museum. Much time was spent looking around passenger aircraft which look like brand new models (to someone who hasn't flown for 10 years) but it turns out they were made, or at least designed, in the late 50's - a bit like me really, but at least I'm not a museum exhibit just yet. Nice one, top one, sorted. Getting more ideas for Volvo things that I need to get back to.
A couple of weeks later, Deep Blue is taken to the Hampton Steam classic car show, carefully avoiding the ULEZ cameras and that was another good old day and a half.
One of ongoing issues with Deep Blue and, to a greater extent, noisy old Blue Bess is that I cannot hear whether the indicators are on or not, which does titch off other drivers sometimes as I tootle along with the flashers permanently on. Hence the plan has been to make a bleeper that warns the driver when the flasher lights are on and this is its current incarnation which plugs straight into the loom. It seems to work reasonably OK on Deep Blue, give or take a bit of background noise. In contrast my efforts to make one for Blue Bess are a bit of a flop as the incessant clicks and chirps due to electrical interference are impossible for my head to handle, so that one is mothballed for a bit.
As a favour for someone else, earlier this year, I had repaired their heater fan resistor box by soldering in an ETA switch, as per MAC's solution, but they reported a failure of the soldering after a few months. Hence, I did another repair with no solder but instead clamping of the terminals for the new thermal cutout as securely as possible, as shown below. A couple of rivets had to be drilled out and replaced with narrow bolts that were cut back to the nuts.
I reckoned that having one of the terminals turned through 90 degrees would not be a problem since the wires connect individually, rather than through a block connector and it was reported that the unit fitted OK.
Another of my exercises in the closing weeks of the year has been to try and fix the equivalent part of a mark 1 Ford Focus (ULEZ compliant, Mr Mayor). I had repaired the unit previously with a once-only thermal fuse, as the device is originally manufactured with, but this died quite soon, although they usually last about a year or so. Hence the below effort with a self-resetting bimetallic strip jobbie was concocted, although it is yet to be tested in earnest. Like everything to do with the mk1 Focus, it looks pretty odd.
It's now the 12th December 2024 and, in true Colonel Gaddafi style, its The People's Question Time hosted by the Mayor of London himself and, as per last time, a group of stalwart ULEZ protestors make their way to the event. I didn't get in this time despite having a ticket as there was a certain issue with one of the vehicles which was part of the protest and this meant that someone was needed outside to keep an eye on things outside the meeting hall. Anyway, it was an interesting evening and possession of said vehicle was regained the following day, at cost.
Next year is here.
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